Two Towers review redux

Well, I stand by everything I said in my first review of The Two Towers.

More particularly (and, with SPOILERS):

1. Faboo movie. A must-see. Incredible effects, stirring story, heroic characters, great stuff.

Yup. Absotively.

I don’t know if I’m more scared of the purely CG stuff, or of the blending of CG and RL stuff where the seams simply do not show. The battle with the orcs and wargs is a case where it doesn’t even occur to you to question what you’re seeing until long after.

If the story doesn’t get your juices flowing, you need to check your juice level.

2. Suffers a bit from being the middle bridge episode. Minimal exposition, lots of action, potential audience confusion. Overall not quite as good as FotR, but we�re just talking degress of excellence here.

Yup. If you haven’t seen the first one, or haven’t read the stories, you will get lost. You’ll enjoy being lost, I think, but you’ll still be lost. We hit the ground running, and never slow down, with only an odd interlude of exposition here and there (Galadriel to Elrond, Frodo reminiscing, and, of course, some keen Wizard-on-Balrog action).

The action, overall, seems busier than in the first flick. Part of that is the parting of the Fellowship, ending up with three distinct groups of protagonists, plus some bits thrown in from Edoras and Rivendell. The timing and spacing of events is dicy, too, both because of the complexity of the original story, and the changes wrought in it by Jackson.

3. Peter Jackson�s taken some liberties with the original story, a bit more than in the first flick. Most of these are good, some are a bit mysterious.

True. One distinct change, which fit in well but could have easily not been included, was the dispatch of elvish archers to Helm’s Deep. One wonders, though, given the distances and time limits involved, how the hell they got there. My impression was that they were sent by Elrond, since Galadriel kvetches at him about it. On the other hand, it would have been a lot quicker to dispatch them from Lorien. (And if Elrond sent them from Rivendell, how was it Arwen didn’t find out?) Odd.

The change certainly added to the “We must all hang together or else we shall surely hang separately” theme to the story, and it fleshes out the elvish role in things further, but it was still an odd addition.

The further expansion of the Aragorn/Arwen story works well, adding a bit of personality to Our Hero. Throw in a bit of a triangle via Eowyn, and it’s all good.

Another change is Faramir dragging Frodo and Sam off all the way to Osgiliath. I suppose this was to make the whole situation a bit more threatening, draw some parallels between how Boromir and his brother were, and give us an excuse to see one of the flying Nazgul up close and personal (with the result that we see their scream is not all that potent and their mounts are real wusses). The change here didn’t do that much for me.

The changes to the Ent storyline were probably fine for the movie. Less magical, but more vivid, if that makes sense. Seeing the Ents tear up Isengard was fun; not having the Huorns there to catch the refugees from the Helm’s Deep battle was a shame, but probably simplified things.

Aragorn taking a tumble into the river kind of draws us back into the romance thing, but it all feels a bit too clumsy. I think that could have been done without adding further complexity to an already-complex plot, especially since he goes from bedraggled-and-near-dead on his (?) horse to being bold and ready for battle in way too short a time.

4. The movie is preceded by an overly-long set of commercials and trailers, most of which were so-so at best.

Agreed. T3 looks cheesy.

5. Gollum is a tour-de-force, and possibly the most interesting character in the film.

Gollum was incredible, even if there were echos (in voice and occasional demeanor) with Dobbie from Harry Potter — I kept expecting to see Gollum start hitting his head on a rock, shouting, “Master Frodo must not go to Mordor! Master Frodo must not go to Mordor!” …

No, but seriously, aside from some lighting and color tone bits where he didn’t quite blend in alongside the live actors, the rendering of Gollum was faboo, and they did a fine job integrating him in with the action (cavorting down the stream bed, and wrestling with Frodo and Sam in particular). And given that his character goes through the most internal emotional change, and tends to emote outwards, it’s not surprising that he comes across as a bit more vibrant and engaging than, say, ever-loyal Sam, ever-tormented Frodo, or ever-noble Aragorn.

In a similar CG vein, the shrinking of the hobbit actors continues to work very well, with only an occasional digital glitch (sitting behind the waterfall comes to mind).

6. When�s the next one coming out? I can�t wait!

Indeed. It will be a sad Christmas 2005 with no LotR movie to wait for (2003 will be the last flick, The Return of the King, and I’m guessing that for 2004 we’ll have the collected 40 DVD set released in late November).

Now for some further, random thoughts …

• Margie noted that they certainly got their money’s worth with the helicoptor shots, and it’s true. On the other hand, sometimes they seemed to get in the way, especially when used as a “Time Passes” routine. I found myself, for example, noting the differences in Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli’s positions as we cut from one flyover to another.
• Okay, I, for one, am tired of Gimli being the comic relief. That he’s a kick-ass fighter is clear from the times when he actually gets to do something, but the “Hey, he’s short and can’t run fast and can’t ride a horse well and, did I mention, he’s short” bit is getting pretty old. He didn’t even get to marvel at the caves behind Helm’s Deep. Bah.

• On the bright side, Rhys-Davies at least got to voice Fangorn. Hoom!

• Merry and Pippin were terribly underutilized. That’s just the way the story goes, but it’s still a shame.

• I was sorry that they didn’t play up more the conflict between Saruman’s orcs and Sauron’s in the chase across Rohan. I shouldn’t be surprised, since they didn’t really set it up in the first film, but the movies’ Saruman is much more a deluded lackey of Sauron than the one in the books, who actually shows a bit of ambition to become a major power in and of himself.

• I really liked the “origin” of the name, “Gollum.” Nicely done.

• One ongoing failing of the films is that where scale is called for, the non-CG renditions of things fail. So, the “long shot” of the Black Gate to Mordor seems huge, massive, terrifying. It being opened by chained trolls was inspired. But when we actually see folks marching into it on the ground, in costumes that look left over from a Xena episode, it, seems much smaller, less intimidating.

  Similarly, Edoras looks pretty cool — but when Gandalf and Co. ride up to the gate … there’s no path there, just a gate. And the town feels more like a village. (I had a similar critique about the lack of a road at the entrance to Moria.)

• I did get a bit confused by the Theoden/Aragorn/Legolas/strategy conflict. Was Theoden smart or foolish to head for Helm’s Deep? Was he still being isolationist and overly-defensive and arrogant, or did he really realize it was the least bad choice? Aragorn seems to disagree with the decision, but later gets angry at Legolas for the same disagreement.

  With as many threads floating about as in this story, Jackson needs to make little things like this clearer.

• The return of Gandalf was handled far better than I’d expected. The wizard doesn’t get nearly enough screen time, alas, but his reappearance (with all the red herrings to make the unsuspecting think it might be Saruman), and his dialog with Aragorn, are marvelous.

So, overall? I give it a definite A. Most of the movie’s scant flaws are forgivable, and it’s wonders are wonderous indeed. I like it, and look forward to going back and seeing it again …